What stands out for me is Joe Lauzon. What made me think this is that he has fought for the promotion 14 times and in his 14 fights has won an "of the night" bonus 11 times. Despite this he is only on a base bay of $27,000 turn up fee yet there are fighters who are IMO earning more despite having less UFC fights and being a lot less exciting.

So my question in this, is Joe Lauzon the most underpaid fighter in the UFC? For this question bonuses are not a factor as this is about base pay but on the other hand could Lauzon's tendency to pick up bonuses be why he isn't getting a bigger base pay?

I don't put much stalk into the comission figures cause I know so many of the guys get bonuses off the books. Ian McCall said he got like 50,000 under the table for his two fights with Johnson this year.

And in terms of how much money they bring in for the UFC, the top guys are underpaid and the bottom guys are overpaid.

Depends on the length of his contract as in the past when fighter get a title shot and win they still have to honour their contract even if it pays 10 and 10. Also the UFC will look at his buying power - how many people will buy the PPV due to his name being on the card. Top sellers have PPV % and gate in their contracts so that's why Chuck et al are millionaires

I would love to know what payments they get behind the scenes, its impossible to say otherwise who is the worst paid, but in fairness Joe does seem to be on a low scale for the amount of fights he has had...suppose the flip side is they probably dont have to pay him top dollar as I can't ever see him winning the belt so he is on a gatekeeper type salary at best, they probably dont have to worry about losing him to another company as he isn't (I assume) a massive draw on his own either so he is kinda stuck sadly, I'm a big fan of Lauzon, dude always brings it and should be rewarded to reflect that, just hope he is behind closed doors...

I wonder if the longer the UFC deal with FOX etc and their revenue increases, will that hopefully see an increase in base pay across the board as well?

If you look at the pattern of wins and losses in the UFC then that will affect his base rate of pay. He pulled together 3 wins at the beginning of his UFC career but since then has struggled for consistency only managing to win two back to back. Once he loses his pay scale probably goes back to the beginning of his contracted amount as it's based on only winning and losing as opposed to level of opponent. Without seeing how many fights he is signed to etc it's hard to work out.

It's interesting the way they sort the wages out. I think they like to keep them on a lower wage and make them earn a bonus but as said nobody knows just how big the under the table bonuses are. It's quite a clever strategy. JDS wages are good i'm surprised Cain is not on more money though it's hard to believe he only earnt half of what JDS did and he won. What do Anderson and GSP earn? They deserve a lot i'm just interested.

Thing is, some of the top end dudes are multi millionaires by all accounts, yet if you go back through their official pay, it probably comes to less than a million in some cases. We will never know, unless someone does a Randy and spills the beans again, - didnt he confirm once he got a 1/4 mil cheque after one fight?

First off i totally agree that his under the table payments will be off the scale after all in his part of the countdown show to UFC 155 he did state that because of his bonuses etc he has a cushy life and was able to buy and set up his own gym.

Also think that On Top made a good point that it could be because of how long his win streaks have been and also agree with the poster who said Pickett is severly underpaid on the base scale.

That said this question was regarding base pay and base pay only. Lauzon is on just $27,000 base pay per fight yet on UFC 155 there are the fighters such as Boetsch, Belcher, and perhaps Okami (fair doos he has has some sucess but hasn't had the performances nor opposition of Lauzon IMO) who are on more. You may even add Leonard Garcia to this seeing he is 1-4 in this UFC stint and on $20,000 just to show.

Again this is disregarding all under the table payments and bonuses but solely base pay. So is Lauzon argueably the most underpaid ie contracted pay?